Abstract: Objective To investigate whether the level of viremia differs in accordance with genotypes and responses to pegylated interferon and ribavirin treatment in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Methods 113 patients with chronic hepatitis C were treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. The level of serum HCV RNA was measured with real-time quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and HCV genotypes were determined by core-envelope1 region nucleotide sequencing followed by phylogenic analysis. Results There were five different subtypes of HCV in 113 patients，including 1b（40.7%），2a（13.3%），3a（9.7%），3b（17.7%）and 6a（18.6%）. The serum HCV RNA（lgcopies/ml）of them were 6.6973±1.19245，6.0824±1.68603，6.8393±1.03400，6.5533±1.29577 and 7.1503±1.16115，respectively；There was no significant relationship between serum HCV RNA and genotypes（F=1.652，P=0.166）；The rate of SVR in patients with higher serum HCV RNA（≥107copies/ml） was similar to that seen in patients with lower serum HCV RNA（＜107copies/ml），whether in the total patients（76.4%vs.75.9%，P=0.950），or in the HCV1b infections（66.7% vs.60.0%，P=0.641）or in the non-HCV1 infected patients（82.4%vs.87.9%，P=0.526）. Conclusions The levels of HCV RNA differ neither in different subtypes of HCV infection nor in different responses to pegylated interferon and ribavirin therapy.

Key words: Hepatitis C, Quantitative PCR, Genotypes, Pegylated interferon